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Stiles Stilinski grew up in small-town California, where most people were friendly, and the baristas at the local coffee shops (all two of them) smiled at you and asked where you were off to today. Partly it was probably for tips, but it was also just because they could, and because they wanted to. Being nice, it was a thing, and even if his dad was at work all day and his best friend was holed up with his girlfriend and there was just no one to talk to—a thoroughly unacceptable circumstance for Stiles, who had words spilling over at every moment—the coffee shop was a good place for some pleasant, if basic, social interaction. In college, too, there were always coffee shops. And the beach, where people were often, strangely, friendlier than on shore, like the water and the salt made them love humanity more.
And then he graduated college, and he got this awesome job (as a research assistant, which would be perfect, if he were researching things other than patent claims, but unemployed guys with student loans can’t be choosers, as the saying goes), and it meant he had to move. Which, fine. He loved his dad, and Scott (the aforementioned best friend), and Beacon Hills was an awesome town, but there were planes and trains and cars in this modern world, and Portland (his new home) was, really, less than a day’s drive, if you didn’t need sleep, which Stiles has always found slightly overrated. And Portland was an awesome town. It had food carts on every corner and thrift stores overflowing with flannel, and even when Stiles sometimes talked to himself—it happens—no one seemed overly bothered. Work was good, life was good, weather sucked, but whatever.
For the first few weeks in town, Stiles tried to avoid the coffee shop crutch. He was meeting plenty of people at work, and he had a neighbor whose schedule overlapped enough with his own that he could have a nice one-sided chat with her every morning (“Hi, Lydia! Your hair is looking particularly lovely today, Lydia!”), and her answering scowls and increasingly gravity-defying shoes always made his day. Plus, he was possibly a little on the ADHD side of normal, despite theoretically having grown out of the need for medication, and he wasn’t sure if his new co-workers were ready for super-caffeinated-Stiles yet. He does drink the coffee at work—because he can hardly go cold turkey—but it’s not espresso, it’s just a sludge that barely makes him jittery at all.
Then one day he comes in to find the office in a state of panic and mourning.
“She broke the coffee machine,” says Finstock, before Stiles is even all the way in the door.
“I didn’t break it! It broke all on its own! Oh my god, stop saying I broke it, everyone hates me already!”
“She broke it.”
This is not the cheerful workplace Stiles has come to know and love. This is one of those movies where nice people get shipwrecked on an island and then become murderous, mindless crazies. Or, looking more closely at Danny and Heather, huddled in the corner—zombies. Horrors.
“OK,” Stiles says gently, “it’s broken.” The passive tense is a wonderful thing. Calming, blame-defying…
“IT’S BROKEN!” Jennifer sobs.
“Yikes. Yes. OK. There is a coffee shop just around the block. So how about we all head over there, like normal people, and you get your caffeine fix, and we pretend we never saw you yank out chunks of hair like a depressed parrot, OK?”
The room turns to face Stiles, as one.
“The coffee shop…” says Danny doubtfully, peeking out from his protective huddle.
“Yes. Coffee shop. Purveyor of coffee. Owner of a functional coffee maker, and an espresso machine. You know what, they probably even have croissants. Everything anyone could need, right downstairs, and around the corner. We can do this.”
“No, no, you don’t…we don’t go there,” says Finstock, horrified, like Stiles suggested not wearing pink on Wednesdays (which Finstock does, religiously).
“OK, but why?”
“He made Jennifer CRY.”
“Well, that’s…yikes. Except, not to be insensitive, but she’s also crying now.”
“Because she BROKE THE GODDAMNED COFFEEMAKER AND EVERYTHING IS HER FAULT.”
Jennifer’s sobs become, impressively, even more wracking.
“It’s broken, remember? Nobody’s fault. Things break. So, this coffee shop of doom?”
“He made her cry!”
Stiles sighs. All these people with liberal arts degrees, a few of them with law degrees, each with at least one unfinished novel buried in a hard drive, and nobody can say anything with any clarity at all.
“But why did he make her cry?”
“He said…he said…” and now Finstock’s on the verge of tears, and he’s always been tightly wound, but good lord, how bad could it—“he said here’s your coffee!!!” Finstock bursts out finally.
Stiles waits a beat. And then another. And then…”That’s it? ‘Here’s your coffee?’ Like…a normal barista anywhere in the world?”
The look Finstock gives him indicates that this is not the case, but no one’s saying why. Ugh.
“Fine. Stay here, like shell-shocked victims in the wake of a coffee-pot-wrecking Godzilla. I’ll just go and get a bunch of coffee for everyone, and if I spill it all over myself on the way back, the third-degree burns will be totally you guys’ fault, so—“
“You think I’m GODZILLA?” Jennifer wails.
Stiles sighs. “No, no, that’s not what I—“
“I’m not even that tall. There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m—“
“You’re perfect. Yes. Kinda neurotic, obviously, but otherwise sweet and perfect, so I’m gonna back away before I break you, OK? GOING TO GET COFFEE, PEOPLE. HELP IS ON THE WAY.”
Danny rises from the fetal position, with the face of a warrior. “I’ll…I’ll come with you,” he says, as if offering to be Stiles’ second in a duel.
“Umm, OK, dude, that’s great. More hands, less chance of spillage. Awesome. Anyone else?”
Everyone else seems to be in varying states of catatonia or nervous breakdown, so…no.
The whole way, Danny keeps trying to talk him out of it. Stiles is hearing none of it.
“Danny, no offense—you know I love you, man—but your best friend is seriously the douchiest douchebag to ever live. So I’m not seeing how you’re the greatest judge of character.”
“No, no, Jackson’s cool. You just don’t get him. This guy…it’s like his mission in life to suck souls out with his brooding glares.”
“OK, wow. And here I thought you were gonna try to avoid the over-dramatics. Your soul is gonna stay intact, Danny, I promise. And if he sucks it out, I’ll, like, find all the horcruxes and destroy them for you.”
“You know that’s not how it works.”
“Whatever, dude, I only saw the movies. But I’m pretty sure I’m right, anyway.”
“If you want to destroy my soul entirely. Which, hey, obviously you do, since here we are and you’re opening the door to the portal to Hell.”
Stiles steps in, and OK, yes, he can see how this sight might bring one to tears. The guy behind the counter is smoking hot. Stiles can feel himself tearing up a little at the utter beauty of that jawline. Sweet heavens above, the stubble, so artfully curving along that perfect bone structure. Those lips, pursed and perfect. That hair, gelled in a subtle swoop that emphasizes the curves and lines of the flawless countenance below…
“Stiles!”
“Huh?”
“It was your idea, you have to go first! Don’t chicken out now!”
“Dude, I was just admiring the view! You can’t tell me you’re not impressed. Look at that guy. How are you not here every morning? And evening? And what are their hours? I could come back on weekends for that.”
Danny looks at him incredulously, “You think…you’re attracted to that—that?”
“Uh, yeah. Are we not looking at the same guy? Tall, dark, and handsome, with diamond-cutting cheekbones and touch-me hair?”
“Oh,” Danny says, after a pause, “that…yeah, OK, looking back on it, that was my first response, too. But that was before…before, Stiles, before. And now it’s like the smoke and sulfur just obscure everything, and it’s just…look away, Stiles. Save yourself. There’s another coffee shop two blocks further, it’s totally worth the walk. Come on.”
“It’s RAINING, dude. There’s nothing worse than when rain gets in the spout of the coffee cup. That’s just…gross. Come on, even if the pretty dude is evil, he’s at least not going to rain in the coffee.”
Danny looks skeptical. “Some risks are better not taken, Stiles.”
“But COFFEE! And pretty boy!”
“Look, if you really need pretty boy in your life, I’ll suck it up and let you kiss me, OK? Will that convince you to let us just go somewhere else?”
“That kind of depends on whether you meant suck it up idiomatically or…”
Danny thumps him on the back of the head. “Go to your doom, then. Jeez, Stiles, if you could just keep your gutter mind away from innuendo for once, you could’ve had this,” he says, gesturing over some abs that, even when clothed, Stiles has in fact always kinda wanted to have.
“Ugh, don’t throw it in my face! Making all these promises you don’t intend to keep, it’s cruel, Mahealani, cruel!”
Other customers, who had apparently been waiting patiently behind the two of them, start pushing past, a few of them grumbling. It’s enough to make Stiles feel bad, and a little embarrassed, and it’s also enough to make the beautiful barista turn to look at them.
And, caught in that gaze, Stiles is…whoa. Yeah, he’s happy to stay here forever, with those eyes on him like he’s the only thing in the world, just shining at him, and…
“Leave if you’re not going to buy anything.”
“What?” Stiles stutters.
The barista glares, “Leave already. You’re blocking the door.”
And, hey, that might be true, but—“Hey, what’s with the shitty attitude? I’m a customer! I’m always right!”
The glare intensifies into a death ray. “You’re not buying anything. You’re not a customer. You’re not right. Leave.”
Stiles falls a little bit in love, at that moment. Danny suggests psychiatric help. But the coffee is delicious, and as its taste lingers in Stiles’ mouth, it blurs his memory of the death-ray stare and the glare-y eyes and the grumpy words into a rainbow of sweetness and light, and Stiles knows the barista is just misunderstood, cursed to express affection only through the deliciousness he brews.
Stiles’ new mission in life becomes to get service with a smile. And maybe some off-menu services, too.
He pesters the barista for his name. When that fails, he pesters the other barista who usually works mornings, a brassy blonde with a man-killing smile with a few too many teeth in it for Stiles to feel like anything but prey under her gaze.
“His name’s Derek,” she says, “and, babe, he’s probably a lost cause. But I could kinda go for the Bambi look, myself. How about it, cutie?”
Stiles might stutter a little. Hot barista—the other hot barista, Derek—actually looks intrigued, for once. “Uh,” Stiles says, “that’s—oh, jeez, it’s kinda hot in here, huh? Umm—“
Derek snorts.
“I mean, that’s super flattering. But if you don’t mind—I think I’m just gonna work on wearing down your co-worker for now. Thrill of the chase, and all that.”
“Oh,” she purrs, “I could make you run.”
Stiles is definitely sweating now. “Oh. Ha. Ha. Yes. You could. I’m actually, maybe, suppressing the urge to run right now? But I think I’m waiting on my order. Am I?”
“Yes,” grunts Derek, “here. Erica, leave the kid alone. No defiling any more virgins today. I told you, one a day, tops, or you’ll exhaust the world’s supply.”
Scary hot barista—Erica?—pouts. Stiles sweats some more. He’s not sure if they’re kidding. He’s not sure if he’s aroused or terrified. He’s not sure—“Wait, what? Who are you calling a virgin?”
They both turn eerily identical pitying looks upon him. And Stiles—well, he has nothing to say to that, really, other than blurt out his list of college one-night stands, and wouldn’t that make a great impression. So he flees.
But he keeps going back, once he’s psyched himself up a bit. And then he charges full speed ahead with bravado and braggadocio, because, hey, fake it until you make it.
He tries a new entry tactic every week. Week one is coffee-centric innuendo (“I bet you’re really good at the long pull, huh?”). Week two is bad pick-up lines (“When you fell from heaven, did it—“—but Derek usually doesn’t let him finish). Week three is all about the eyebrows (“You’re my Aravan, reincarnated. I’d carry the emblem of your self-sacrificial head around with me always, just to stroke your magnificent eyebrows.”). Week four is obscure song lyrics (but Derek knows them all, and so Stiles just feels inadequate). Week five is suggestions for the shop’s menu, which is currently limited to biscotti and muffins (“Tiramisu. Layered, like you, sweet cheeks, and so smooth and sweet on the palate.”).
Stiles actually puts a lot of thought and effort into this, in that he spends hours surfing Wikipedia for ever-more esoteric anecdotes.
Sometimes Derek ignores him. Sometimes he says, “That’s creepy,” or “That’s culturally insensitive,” or “That’s physically impossible.”
Stiles starts telling Derek, each day, about his progress drawing Lydia out of her shell. This, frustratingly enough, seems to push Derek even further into his shell, but Stiles is trying not to care at this point. All these people with their pretty hair just don’t understand him.
One day Stiles is harassing Derek—as he does—and telling him no one has the right to be so gloomy.
“Hey, whoa,” says the girl beside him, looking up from her careful muffin-arranging duties, “that’s a pretty presumptuous and thoughtless thing to say. Some people have had really tough lives, you know—you can’t begin to—what if you knew that his whole family burned to death in a fire when he was only a teenager, huh? Does that maybe give him the right to be gloomy, or should he smile just for you?”
Stiles pales noticeably. Considers that the shop’s name, which he thought was just a half-cute pun (though Danny said really it was a warning) is, in fact, a really morbid nod to an actual thing—Hale Fire Roasters. Oh my god, thinks Stiles, who does that?
“Oh. Oh, god. I didn’t…I’m so sorry. Dude. I’m—“
“This is my sister. Laura,” Derek says gloomily, “one of three. Living. Breathing. Tormenting me.”
“Oh? Oh. Good?”
Laura rolls her eyes, “the point stands, though. Not that I, too, wouldn’t love to see grumpy-guts smile, but seriously, kid, you can’t go around just telling people to.”
“No? But I…kind of do?”
Laura sighs, but it sounds affectionate. Derek makes no noise at all, but it sounds completely and utterly exasperated.
It’s starting to get to Stiles, all the rejections and glares and frowns, and he feels like he’s not actually amusing Derek like he once thought, but just…annoying him. And that hurts worse than the rejection. Between Derek and Lydia, he’s starting to doubt the strength of his patented charm-by-sarcasm offensive. Which, to be fair, has yet to prove its effectiveness on anyone.
Stiles orders almost everything on the menu, eventually. At least, everything on the menu that involves a lot of sugar. Nothing ever gets a look of appreciation for his selection, a comment of that’s my favorite, too or bold choice or even ugh, you American philistines (even though Derek is American too, so why would he say that? But Stiles’ imagined conversations rarely adhere to logic).
Stiles has spent more on coffee this month than on rent. If he sees one of those feed-the-starving-children ads on TV, he’s going to curl up in a ball of shame. But he can’t stop going back, and he’s past telling himself it’s the coffee he’s addicted to. It’s definitely the guy. Or, more worryingly, the emotional abuse.
“Hey, Erica,” he says one day, “insult me.” Because she’s awesome at insults. She obliges. But…nothing, except a little knee-jerk indignation. Yep, it’s the guy.
“I’m doomed,” he wails.
“Are you telling yourself, or me?” Erica asks, “Because I could’ve told you that the first day I saw you.”
“What, how? What do you mean?”
“I remember it like it was yesterday. I walked out of the storeroom, and there you were at the counter, annoying Derek with stories about your neighbor and looking at him like he glued the stars to your dorm room ceiling.”
“I—what—what does that even—“ Stiles sputters.
“It means you look at him like a lovesick puppy, sweetie. And it’s adorable. Except when you look like a lovesick lusty puppy, and then it’s just bizarre. It’s basically the highlight of my day, after my running tally of how many customers Derek makes cry.”
“It's just...flirting. Pursuit. No one's lovesick," Stiles says, aware he's being thoroughly unconvincing, "And wait, the crying is a common thing? I kind of thought my co-workers were just being weird, because sometimes they are…I’ve never seen him make anyone cry.”
“Because when you’re here, sweetie,” Erica says with a leer as she leans over the counter, “he’s too busy looking at you to glare at anyone else.”
And then she snaps a dishtowel in Stiles’ face and gets back to work, leaving him extremely dazed and confused (his standard post-Erica state), but also strangely encouraged.
At their shared apartment (because Derek is an idiot, and when his big sister said, “It’ll be so much fun for us to be roomies!” he believed her) Laura keeps nudging at Derek about “that cute guy from the shop.”
“Even at rest, his mouth looks like it’s smiling!” Derek says, “I can’t live with someone that happy!”
Laura looks at him triumphantly. “And who said anything about living with, brother dear? Your subconscious must be a fascinating place.”
Derek might be blushing. “I’m not…it’s just an expression. Like, ‘I can’t stand’—‘can’t live with’—“
“Can’t live without?”
“Shut up.”
And Laura seems quite happy to, for once.
And now Derek is stuck thinking about that perma-smile, the one with the notches at the sides because there’s too much cheek to be pinned down, the smooth skin scattered with moles, and then those surprisingly sharp cheekbones, and god, he needs a life. He needs a nice one-night stand with a guy who won’t call him the next day and won’t show up in line asking for a latte and rambling about his perfect perfect neighbor.
Derek feels queasy, and dizzy, and he’s sure he’s getting sick. There’s a 99% chance he’s feeling this way because he’s sick.
As it turns out, he is sick, which comes as something of a relief, at least for the first few moments.
Derek has come down with the flu. The super-flu. He’s actually pretty sure he dies at some point, and nothing but Laura shoveling chicken soup in his mouth revives him. He moans pitifully and demands to be brought juice in a cup with a straw, and he coughs loudly at night since if he can’t sleep no one else should be allowed to either. Laura says he’s one of those twisted people who enjoys being sick. He ignores her as he reads her Harlequin novels and snivels a little bit whenever the hero says you’re just too good for me, because god, when will he ever find someone to say that to him?
Stiles is not an easily discouraged person. He has cross-referenced diagrams and built 3-D models to prove overlapping claims; he has learned rudimentary Russian to argue with a Moscow-based patent troll who had a flimsy knowledge of international copyright law but an intriguing range of ways in which to insult someone’s parentage.
But Stiles can feel his determination waning, eventually. Danny has long since abandoned accompanying Stiles on his quests (“It was interesting at first, like watching a nature documentary where the gazelle just wants to be friends with the lion, but it’s gotten a little boring. Let me know if he stops showing teeth and actually bites, dude”—which spawned more dreams than Stiles would like to admit to about just how Derek is welcome to bite him, but that’s just beside the point). Stiles looks at his bank balance, all the item lines for the coffee shop, and jeez, who knew it added up like that. So one day, he’s about to let Derek know that, hey, he’s about to have to learn to live without Stiles’ beautiful face to brighten his every weekday morning. But Derek isn’t there that morning. Or the next. And Stiles can’t bring himself stop going if Derek isn’t there to be alerted that he’s not going to be there anymore, because what if Derek doesn’t even notice he’s gone? So Stiles keeps going, and he exchanges quips with Laura, but he can’t quite bring himself to ask where Derek is, because even though he feels like it would be a normal thing to ask, that doesn’t mean it would be. His grasp on normal has always been a little tenuous. Laura gives him a funny look each day, and he’s not sure if it’s because he doesn’t ask that obvious question, or because his smiles are a little off, or just because he’s Stiles and people give him funny looks a lot. He doesn’t know, but he keeps going back, and every time, coffee is only second on his mind.
Finally, one morning Derek wakes up and can move without wanting to hurl or collapse. Time to go back to work, then. And, he can’t help thinking, in just a very small inconsequential corner of his mind, back to Stiles.
The nice thing about working at a coffee shop in a non-managerial function (he leaves all that to Laura's discretion) is that there’s nothing to catch up on after he's been out. No homework assignments missed, no paperwork piled up. Sure, he owes some people for covering his shifts, so he’ll probably end up working some awful weekend hours, but that’s fine. It’s nice, for once, for the world not to need him actively participating in every moment of it.
Or so he thinks until he gets to the shop that morning.
“Oh my god, Derek, you’re back! I thought you were dead! I thought I would die! Did you know that your sister told me you were dying? She actually said of the plague, like it was ridiculous, but people still get that and god what if you died of the plague? You’d be the first Oregon victim since—well, since last year when that guy saved the mouse, but still.”
Derek holds one hand to his aching head and extends the other in what is a fairly universally acknowledged signal to stop.
But Stiles barrels right on.
“And I’m so glad you’re not dead, because your sister refused to put flavoring of any kind in my lattes—‘you’re old enough to drink something that actually tastes like coffee, Stiles,’ she said—but I’m really not, and what does age have to do with it? She seemed so nice, before, but it’s like she took on all of your grumpiness while you were out and it found its perfect host in her dark, dark heart, because—“
“Stiles.”
“Huh?”
“Please, just…stop. For a minute. As I go to the back to throw up the only solid food I’ve been able to keep down in over a week.”
Stiles’ lips part wide and a noise comes out of his throat that—god, Derek doesn’t know how to categorize it. It’s part awww and part whine and part speaks directly to Derek’s cock, and Derek doesn’t even know what to do with that, especially since it’s causing a churning in his gut that’s going counter-clockwise to the nausea that was already there.
“Do you…dude, should you even be at work right now? Do you need me to get you anything?” Stiles looks genuinely concerned. It’s not a bad look on him, actually, Derek thinks.
“Drugs.”
“What kind?”
“No, no, I was joking. What kind—Stiles, what do you do for a living?”
“Deal drugs, obviously, otherwise why would I offer—Derek, you idiot, I meant legal, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals.”
“Sure you did,” says Derek, “but if I asked for pot?”
“Then I’d drive you up to Vancouver, dude. It sucks because most of the best suppliers are delivery-only, and my friend who lives up there is out of town, but—“
“You—you would—“
“Don’t be judgey! Fine, work your diseased self to death. See if I care.”
“Oh my god, Derek, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s absolutely right,” Erica says as she looks up from her work, looking appalled. “You look like death.”
“Mmmmph,” Dereks refutes. The world might actually be spinning a little.
“Stiles, make him go home,” Erica says, which…wait, what?
“Oh, right. Because he listens to me,” says Stiles.
“He does! Don’t you, Derek? Der—don’t you dare throw up inside the shop, Derek!”
Derek gurgles helplessly.
“Stiles! Do something!”
“Fine, fine. But, ugh, seriously, Derek, lay off the weights. My fragile frame was not built to haul around your massiveness,” Stiles gasps as he drags Derek toward the bathroom.
Derek feels like he should be helping Stiles out here, doing something like…walking…but his legs don’t feel fully attached to his body, and he just wants to go to sleep…here…here is nice.
“Ack, Derek, no! Bad Derek! Oh my god, Erica, if he dies on me I’m going to kill you!”
Derek has some vague memories of Stiles holding his head up as he regurgitated all that nice solid food that had seemed like such an accomplishment earlier that morning. He has even fuzzier memories of Erica and Stiles hefting him into a cab, of Stiles’ fingers brushing lightly across his brow as Derek dozed on an uncomfortably bony knee. The memories end there, but when he wakes up he’s in a bed he’s never seen before, there’s a damp cloth against his forehead, and the pillow below his head smells kind of like Stiles.
“Oh my god, he kidnapped me,” Derek mutters into the pillow. “Just like the gypsy woman said.”
“You didn’t even take any of the good stuff, Derek, so you don’t have the excuse of being high. Do tell, grumpy-pants, about these gypsy women you consult with.”
“Just the one. And I think she wasn’t actually. Maybe. Where am I? What happened?”
“En la casa de Stiles! Bienvenido, Derek-san! And you were kind of sick. Actually, really sick, in the gross rather than the romantic way.”
“The romantic way?”
“Like if you had TB, and were gently coughing up blood as you faded away. Instead of blowing chunks at the shop, in the taxi, in my living room, and on my shoes.”
“Ugh. My mouth tastes like ass.”
“And that’s how you know I’m not making all this up to cover for my master kidnapping plan.”
“Does it? Or does it mean you’re more clever than I gave you credit for?” Derek asks as he drags himself upright, somewhat reluctantly.
Stiles gapes at him a little. “Did the fever…give you a sense of humor? Burn away your hard outer shells?”
Derek’s first instinct is to cuff him on the back of the head, but that seems in poor taste, since Stiles has apparently been nursing him back to health. Or at least, not letting him die. So he just settles for glaring as he says, “Thanks. For taking care of me. Can I borrow your phone?”
Stiles looks at him suspiciously. “It’s not cool if you call 911.”
“Should I be calling 911?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Good. Because I was just going to call Laura to come pick me up.”
“Oh. OK, yeah. Actually, I was supposed to call her when you woke up, anyway. Here,” he says, shoving a phone in Derek’s face. “Tell her I was good, I left your pants on and everything.”
Derek sputters a little. “Was that ever in question?”
“Well, you’d have been more comfortable without them, right? And who am I to deny a dying man comfort?"
Derek narrows his gaze at Stiles, then peeks under the sheets.
“Hey! I resent this lack of trust!”
Derek thinks he’s relieved to see his pants are in fact still on, as are his socks and…shoes.
“You didn’t even take my shoes off?”
“Other people’s shoes are kind of gross, dude. And if I can’t take a guy’s pants off, why bother with his shoes?”
Derek’s still trying to figure out if there’s a good answer to that when Laura picks up the phone, and it’s all he can do to just ask for a ride and not a rescue.
He sits around awkwardly after hanging up. “She’ll be here in 10.”
“OK.” But Stiles just keeps standing there in the doorway, staring at him.
“Umm, I’ll just…go clean up.”
“OK.”
“Is there something on my face?”
“Nope.”
“Why are you staring at me, then? Exactly?”
“You’re in my bed, dude. This is me memorizing the picture. Because before you were sick, and then out cold, and I’m not a pervert, but now you’re fully cognizant, so it’s not creepy at all.”
Nope. Not creepy at all. Derek runs to the bathroom and locks himself in. He thinks he might have a crush on someone completely certifiable. He stays in there until Laura arrives, and he knows it’s incredibly childish, but Stiles doesn’t say anything except, “Sorry, no filters.”
Which is in no way a denunciation of the unfiltered words. Derek thinks about it the whole way home, even as he fields Laura’s teasing about your handsome nursemaid and did you play doctor and were there any hot, fevered confessions? Derek gives answers, but he’s not sure if they all match up to the questions any more than his emotions match up to his plans. He’s not even sure if he wants them to, any more.
The care-tending is never mentioned again by either of them, but Derek doesn’t glare at Stiles any more. He stops sniffing derisively at Stiles’ flannel shirts (Derek despises ‘fake lumberjack hipsters’ in the way only a competing subspecies of hipster can), and once he says “you’re welcome” after Stiles says thanks for the coffee. Stiles drinks his coffee that day with extra caution, but it has just the same perfect smoothness it always does. Stiles taps his fingers thoughtfully against the side of the cup all throughout the morning. Danny asks, “Hey, Stiles, still daydreaming about your barista?”
Stiles demurs. He says he’s researching a particularly nuanced case. He says he’s just decided his liver deserves better than what passes for workplace coffee. He says it’s fascinating how some people more than a thousand years ago saw some seeds and thought, let’s try to make something to drink out of this. Danny lets him talk, but then he gives him a look, one eyebrow raised, and Stiles wishes Danny could be a little less perceptive.
One particularly bright and sunshiney day, Stiles decides that if Derek’s being mature, Stiles can be, too. “Americano,” he says suavely, leaning against the counter.
Derek does a very pronounced double-take. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
Stiles contains his own double-take at the fact that Derek Hale has just said, “I’m sorry,” in however trivial a context, and repeats, “Americano, please.”
Derek stares at him. “Stiles…you know…that’s not, like, a specialty latte. It doesn’t have red, white, and blue sprinkles on top.”
Stiles huffs. “I know that. I read a whole book about coffee that your sister gave me for Christmas, OK?”
“Laura gave you a Christmas present? A book?”
“We’re tight like that. And, hey, I resent that implication. I read.”
“Laura gave me a can opener for Christmas.” Derek's mouth is in a shape that looks suspiciously like a pout. Stiles wants to nip at it with his teeth.
“I’m not even gonna ask.”
“Because He-man here broke our freakin’ can opener with his freakishly strong man-paws,” Laura interjects as she bustles in from the back room, still tying on her apron.
“Oh. Uh, way to go, He-man.” Stiles sneaks a look at those hands. Hmmm.
“No pervy thoughts about my brother where I can see them!”
“You can’t see them! They’re all firmly sequestered within my mind!”
“They’re written all over your freakishly expressive face!”
“Oh my god, guys, I’m standing right here!” Derek yells out.
Stiles gapes. Derek has never raised his voice above that calm, coolly mocking tone, the one that says I am a superior being and you should bow down before my voice.
“Oh my god, we broke him.”
“He’s not broken,” Laura says delightedly, “he’s freed! Der-der, you’re back!”
Derek slumps to the ground, head in hands. “Why?”
“Is that…rhetorical? Because if not, you’re going to need to add a direct object to that query, buddy,” Stiles says helpfully.
“Why am I surrounded by idiots? Related to idiots? Relegated to serving idiots? How is this my life?”
“I can’t really speak to the first two—though I might suggest karma—but you’re obviously not serving anyone, despite being on shift,” Laura says.
Stiles turns around and notices that, hey, a line has formed behind him. And they are all clearly not appreciative that their morning has been graced with his witty banter.
Derek gets up from the floor, grudgingly. “OK, Stiles, what did you really want?”
“Hands, Derek! Wash hands! Oh my god, seriously, you today, you’re like a child! I’ll get your order, Stiles. If it’s something where you can—“
“Actually taste the coffee, I know, I know. And that’s what I actually ordered to begin with, before all”—he waves dramatically—“this. Americano, please.”
Laura gives him a look very similar to the one he got from Derek. “Stiles,” she says suspiciously, “what’s Batman’s alter ego?”
“Bruce Wayne, Laura, come on, do you have passwords for drink orders now? I was actually supposed to be at work…oh, shit, 30 minutes ago. Chop, chop!”
“Just checking to make sure, you know, that aliens hadn’t invaded your body.”
“Um, kinky. A little worried that that’s where your mind heads to first. But, no. Me. The one and only Stiles Stilinski. Currently late to work and really under-caffeinated.”
Derek hands over a cup, looking at Stiles oddly. “Are you sure—really, Stiles, you want to drink this? You don’t want a honey vanilla latte with cinnamon sprinkles? A white mocha with chocolate shavings? A—“
“I’m trying something different, Derek. Besides, your sass is all the syrup I need. And I’m sure that this is wonder—holy god this is disgusting, what did I just put in my mouth?”
“That’s what she said,” the guy in line behind Stiles offers helpfully.
“Or he said,” the woman behind him adds, “clearly the more relevant pronoun here.”
“What?” Stiles says, “what, seriously, with the world today? I don’t even know what anyone’s talking about, except, yes, scratch this and get me that honey vanilla latte. And a toothbrush, because, god, that was like drinking motor oil. Ugh, ugh, ugh.”
And Derek—he might be holding back a smirk at that. Stiles calls it progress.
Then one evening, Stiles comes in after a ridiculously long day at work, where he’s been struggling to meet a ridiculously arbitrary deadline, and he just needs caffeine so he can bike home within weaving out of the bike lane, which is never a safe thing to do. He’s found that though Portland is a “bike-friendly city,” this really only means that it has a lot of bikers. Everyone else still really hates them.
The shop is about to close—and god, how did it get so late?—and Derek looks at him like he is lower than low, to make him actually do his job in the last five minutes of his job. And Stiles gets it. He waited tables, once, somewhat disastrously, and he knows the need to just clock out and leave. But he also really needs coffee, so Derek’s just going to have to deal with it.
“Hey, Derek, you ready to go?” Laura asks, peeking out of the back room.
Derek growls and angles his head at Stiles.
“Oh, Stiles, hey. Sorry, I didn’t realize we had any customers left. Derek, did you flip the sign?”
Derek growls again.
“OK, I’m going. Jeez, Derek. You know, you’d think you’d be a little more cheerful, especially since Cora’s cooking your favorite tonight.”
“Cora?” Stiles asks. Not at all like a jealous would-be suitor.
“One of our younger sisters. We do family dinners on Thursday nights.”
“Aww! That’s so sweet!”
Derek grunts.
And then Laura is off talking about what awesome cooks her sisters are, how one of them bakes the muffins for the shop, and Stiles feels his stomach growl, against his will. He coughs, embarrassed, to cover it, but it’s a little late.
Stiles isn’t sure which of the three of them is more surprised when Derek says, “Hey, Stiles, you could come over for dinner. If you want.”
Laura’s unsubtly gaping at them both, and Stiles knows his own mouth is wide open, but as soon as he processes the invitation, he nods vigorously, because what are the chances he’ll ever get asked again? And if he falls asleep at their dinner table, that’ll just be…only a little awkward. And he’s seen Derek puke, so he thinks Derek should be able to handle him falling asleep.
He’s never been to Derek’s before, so he’s expecting some minor awkwardness, but it’s still a bit of a shock to walk into an apartment to face two very pretty people who look a lot like female Dereks just standing there…staring at him.
Derek glares back at his sisters. One giggles; the other winks at Stiles. Derek’s glare intensifies, and whoa, who knew he was holding back on what he gives his least-favorite customers at the shop.
“This is Cora, the youngest,” Derek introduces, with a choppy wave, “and this is Nora, who’s just a year younger than me. She’s in her senior year at Reed.”
“Oh, hey, that’s nice, sticking close to home. And a great school. And—I’m sorry, do your names all rhyme? Derek, have you been holding out on me? What’s your real name?”
“Derek.”
“No, no, you can tell me, I won’t laugh.”
“Derek.”
“Come oooooooooon,” Stiles wheedles.
Derek quirks an eyebrow. It’s like watching a feat of physics. “How about you tell me yours first.”
Stiles grimaces. “Oh. Well if you want to be like that, then fine, Flora, never mind.”
“Stiles, my name is not—“
“Dora!”
“You're being ridiculous.”
“Pandora.”
“You’re not going to stop, are you?”
“No, Aurora dear. Oh my god, you’re a Disney princess! I knew it!”
“Oh, no, what gave it away.”
“Those eyes, sweet cheeks! Normal people don’t get eyes like that! They have to be bestowed by illustrators bewitched by mice and ribbons.”
“Does that…make sense in your head?”
“Yes? Zora. Honora. Isadora. I feel like I should be bursting into song with this.”
Cora coughs gently, and Nora thumps her on the back, chin tucked into her shoulder.
“What?”
“You’ve kind of been singing them all. You kind of always get this weird sing-songy tone when you talk to Derek for any extended period of time. It’s actually…cute? Let’s go with cute,” says Laura, “as opposed to just weird, which it also is.”
“No. I don’t do that. Do I?”
She nods sagely.
“Hmmph.”
After that dinner, Derek and Stiles start to hang out outside of the coffee shop as well as within it. Sometimes Stiles ducks into the shop just before closing and tells Derek where they’ll be going; Derek rolls his eyes and grumbles, but never says no. A few times Stiles texts Derek over the weekend, and tells Derek where they’ll be going; Derek always texts back ugh why, but he always shows up. It blossoms into something that Stiles can't bring himself to say out loud yet.
Stiles learns new things about Derek, like doesn’t like having his cheeks pinched and hates being called sugar-plum and resents being introduced as “my lover and cousin, Miguel.”
Everything is new, somehow; even Stiles’ familiar rants, like the one about how Batman is better than Spiderman, or about the evils of fluoridation, take on new meaning in the open air. If Derek disagrees, he only says so twice.
They walk through Chapman Square together, hand in hand, and Stiles is so high on life and love that even the deranged man sprawled on a bench screaming “MOUNTAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!!!!” doesn’t faze him.
“What the fuck is that, even?” Derek asks as they pass.
“I think it’s a new craft beer,” Stiles replies, because it’s gotta be either that or a band. The kind with ukuleles and a flugelhorn.
Life is beautiful. They grab food from a cart pod, and Stiles tries to feed Derek by hand, because by all rights they’d be at that point of the montage by now, but Derek slaps his hand away and the reindeer dog falls to the ground. Stiles looks at it in dismay. Derek looks only a little bit apologetic.
“Genuine reindeer meat, Derek! Dashed to the ground like a common mixture of pork offal!”
Derek appears to be having some problems digesting his falafel.
“It was that you didn’t want me feeding you phallic objects in public, wasn’t it? Ugh, sorry. I didn’t think about how I was, you know, shoving my sausage in your face in broad daylight. But I guess I can see how—Derek? Derek, I don’t actually know CPR, do I need to start screaming for help? Thump once for yes, twice for no—“
Derek lets out a thoroughly unattractive hacking cough. “No, no, I’m good. But—god, don’t say things like that. And it’s not that—just, no feeding me, period, OK? I’m a grown man. With two hands.”
“And what talented hands they are. But it was supposed to be cute, like, food-sharing. It’s what people in relationships do, Derek.”
“Relationships?”
“Don’t choke again, god, Derek! Yes, relationships. Of which we are in one. Of a romantic nature. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize that.”
“No, no, of course—no, actually, no. Since when? Did I have a say in this?”
“Not really. But when you took me home to meet your family, that’s the date I’m calculating our anniversary from.”
“Our anniversary?”
“You know, our relationship birthday. You’ve heard of them? One-month—that’s next week, so you should probably consider making a reservation now—six-month, one-year, two-year, etc. etc. until at our 75th our grandkids are cooing over our wedding photos and saying, ‘You look so young, granddads! But Grandpa Derek, why aren’t you smiling?’”
Derek wheezes.
“Babe, maybe you’re allergic to chickpeas. Have you had this reaction before? Maybe they’re trying some fusion with something you’re allergic to. Derek? Any allergies?”
“Your mouth.”
“No, no, I’m pretty sure we’ve established my mouth only has very positive effects when it comes into contact with your body. Seriously, Derek, what—“
“Our grandkids?”
“Too soon?”
Derek wheezes some more. Maybe too soon.
But at their one-month anniversary dinner (which Stiles had to make the reservation for, because despite the reminder, Derek totally forgot—and by ‘forgot’, Stiles means ‘said that was such an arbitrary and pointless thing to celebrate’), Stiles gets Derek to admit he’d like this thing they have to be long-term. And that’s good, because Stiles has already half-started planning the wedding.
So they do long-term. They meet, they eat, they touch, and they talk, and every time Derek spills more information about himself, always followed by a wince, like he’s dishing out a portion of his soul with each detail, Stiles falls a little bit harder. Who knew strong and silent was so his type? But clearly it is, because Stiles hoards each bit he learns all the more jealously for how reluctant Derek is to share.
Strangely, the hardest information to get out of Derek is why be a barista?
To Stiles, it’s one of the more obvious getting-to-know-you questions. And like all such questions, it’s easy to give an answer that’s only partially true, if the truth is too close to heart.
But for the longest time, Derek won’t answer, just says “later.” And so Stiles waits, because he can do that, sometimes.
Then one day, Stiles asks if Derek’s parents live in Portland, too, and if he sees them often. As in, hint hint, when might you be introducing your delectable boyfriend to them?
But Derek says, “Oh, they passed away a while ago,” and Stiles feels awful for asking, and awful because he’s not made to deal with others’ grief; he can barely handle his own.
It was a car wreck, Derek says, while he was still in high school. No drunk drivers, no stupid kids, no bad guys to blame; just bad weather and balding tires and a curve taken too quickly in the dark. “It was a while ago,” Derek repeats, and Stiles knows that’s for his benefit, because his unease is a veil upon his face. He talks haltingly in kind about his mom, and the cancer that took her, and at first he feels like he’s responding to Derek’s trust by offering a sad truth of his own, but in the end, as he’s sobbing on Derek’s shoulder, he feels like he just took Derek’s pain and made it all about his own. He tries to apologize, for it, but Derek just rubs his back, in slow circles, and says, “Don’t be an idiot.”
And then Derek talks about why he became a barista: because the shop was his parents’, and he could never do anything but carry on their legacy. Because it’s what he has left of them. Because they loved it, and so he does too; because when he smells roasting coffee beans it smells like family and love.
Stiles has never considered that love has a scent. He thinks about his love for his dad, and it’s a warm, solid feeling, but without olfactory input. He thinks about what he feels for Derek, and yes—that’s coffee-scented, too. The connection warms him.
“So,” Stiles says, “have you done, like, your study abroad in Italy to learn from the masters?”
“No,” Derek replies, “My parents taught me, and Laura, and I went through guild certification.”
“I’m part of a guild, too, but I’m guessing yours doesn’t fight orcs.”
Derek’s mouth twitches into what might be, for Derek, a smile. “You’d be right.”
“So, just to be clear, you’re not going to run off to Italy to further your career, right? Like on that Korean show? Because that was totally lame, and you can’t do that to me.”
“Stiles,” Derek says, amused, “You’re supposed to let me follow my dreams.”
“Fuck that, you’re supposed to be here to fuck me every night.”
And Derek just shrugs agreeably.
“Jorah,” Derek says softly, that night, trailing his fingers through Stiles’ hair.
“What?”
“What my mom wanted to name me. And it’s my middle name. My dad wouldn’t let her put it as the first. He filled out the birth certificate while she was still under anesthesia from the C-section.”
“Your dad sounds kind of awesome. Derek Jorah Hale, huh. Wait, like Ser Jorah?”
“What?”
“Oh my god, your name could’ve been Jorah! Why don’t you just go by that? It’s so much more badass than Derek.”
“Wait, how is Jorah badass in any way? It sounds like a girl’s name. It rhymes with a shit ton of girls’ names.”
“But, no, he’s this knight-type guy, and yeah he did the slave-selling thing, so not cool, but he fights for the Khaleesi—who is badass, by the way, despite her ‘girl’s name’ and, ya know, being a girl, so I don’t know what your problem is—and—“
“Ugh, is this another Star Trek thing? Please don’t tell me I share a middle name with a Star Trek character.”
“You—you—you—“ Stiles sputters, “I can’t believe I kissed that mouth. Heresy! On multiple fronts!”
Derek shrugs.
“If you say you don’t watch TV—“
“I don’t watch TV.” Derek smirks.
“How did I not know this? You should have to wear a sign around your neck, a warning bell—something to scream ‘pretentious hipster who disdains the greatest entertainment medium of all time, possibly tied with video games.’” Stiles stares, questioning all his life choices. It was one thing to throw himself at a guy he was warned by his friends was the devil incarnate, who showed no indications of friendliness, whose own sister told Stiles that “he hasn’t been right since I dropped him on his head. Out of a tree,” and was only maybe kidding. It’s another thing entirely to be dating a guy who doesn’t watch TV.
“You know, we were having a moment, and this time you’re the one that ruined it. I’d just like to point that out,” Derek says calmly, like he hasn’t just rocked Stiles’ world, in the not-good kind of way.
“We were?”
“I told you my name! I don’t tell anybody that. I almost got it legally changed, once, except that felt like it’d be rejecting my mom, you know, and…”
“Oh, babe.” Stiles melts. He pets Derek’s hair a little, wants to cradle that beautiful face in his hands and tell him how precious a soul he has, under all that grumpiness.
The extended silence is comfortable, the moment so sweet Stiles kind of wants to bask in it forever. Until he gets bored.
”I kinda wish your mom had named you something really embarrassing, just so your sentimental self would be stuck with it.”
“Not cool, Stiles.”
“No, it’s totally cool. I, too, have a dead parent, so I’m declaring it cool. I’m not insulting your mom’s memory, dude, just saying she should have had the foresight to name you Der-bear. Derbert. Derby. Oh my god, can I call you that? Derby. See, it’s like…”
“It’s like you want to die.”
“Fine, fine, be that way. DJ.”
“Stop it.”
“What, that’s perfectly innocuous. Your initials. Also, he who got us fallin’ in love again. At least it’s not, you know, VD. BJ. DP.”
“Stop. I don’t even know what you’re saying any more, but god, stop already.”
“I was on a roll, Derek.”
“Well, roll with this.”
And then as Stiles finds himself being rolled under a lot of Derek, smushed against the sofa in a truly delicious way, he stops. Because he can do that, if provided sufficient incentive. And this is definitely that.
After a very satisfying bout of increasingly-naked wrestling, Stiles is willing to concede that he’ll call Derek whatever he wants to be called, including, apparently, “Sex God,” and “Alpha,” and seriously, who knew what kinks were lurking under that All-American serial killer exterior?
“Your ego, it truly knows no bounds,” Stiles says when he can finally breathe normally again, as he tries to think about all the things he may have confessed to under…duress.
“You love the size of my…ego.”
“Ugh, you’re not as good at this as you think you are.”
“Really? Because earlier you were saying—“
“Ugh, stop. You, with all the cheesy come-ons, it’s painfu—oh, this is you paying me back for the name thing, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“You—you devious bastard. That’s so hot. Get over here again.”
Derek smirks, but he complies.
“I’m making you watch TV with me, though.”
Derek just grunts.
Stiles reaches a hand over for tickle time, but Derek slaps it away without even a sideways glance.
“You’re lucky I like your grumpiness,” Stiles pouts.
“I’m told it’s my defining characteristic, so I’d be a little concerned if you went to all this trouble to date me and didn’t.”
“Point. But still,” Stiles says, poking Derek’s nose, which, judging from the look on his face, is not an ok thing to do, “I wish you were happier, too.”
“I am happy,” Derek says grumpily. “Grumpiness and happiness are not mutually exclusive.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Do you want to…show me how happy you are?”
And Derek smothers his mouth in a kiss that somehow does manage to feel both grumpy and happy all at once. It's rather impressive.
“OK, I’ll allow it,” he relents.
“Allow what?”
“Your grumpy happiness. It works for you.”
“And you too, I get the feeling.”
“Yeah, maybe so. Who knew? Now go make me coffee, barista boy.”
Derek swats at him on his way out, but Stiles can hear the gurgle of the coffee maker soon after, and he smugly reclines, an emperor awaiting his grapes. It’s not service with a smile, exactly, but all things considered, he thinks it’s working out just fine.